With the best, thats a good bit of PR, though I would say the Bedford team, theres, like, you know, 13 blokes who can get together at the weekend to have a game together, which doesnt point to expansion of the game. Point, yeah go on!

With the best, thats a good bit of PR, though I would say the Bedford team, theres, like, you know, 13 blokes who can get together at the weekend to have a game together, which doesnt point to expansion of the game. Point, yeah go on!

We've gone from minimum pricing to cheaper beer in a week. Joined up government.

Make it cheaper to get drunk and take our mind off how bad things are? Give the papers a nice feel-good headline to focus on and stop them reading the budget small print which is usually where all the bad stuff is hidden?

The beer thing is the most blatant vote grabber in the history of politics. Absolutely no logic to it!!!

What he should have done is increased the duty on beer in cans by 50%, bottles by 30% and dropped the duty on casks by 10%.

That way supermarkets prime loss leaders, cheap canned larger and cider and the vile smooth flow would have the pressure put on to up prices, tasteless fizzy kegs from the big brewers would be unaffected and the thriving cask micro brewery market would be given a big boost.

What he should have done is increased the duty on beer in cans by 50%, bottles by 30% and dropped the duty on casks by 10%.

That way supermarkets prime loss leaders, cheap canned larger and cider and the vile smooth flow would have the pressure put on to up prices, tasteless fizzy kegs from the big brewers would be unaffected and the thriving cask micro brewery market would be given a big boost.

What he should have done is increased the duty on beer in cans by 50%, bottles by 30% and dropped the duty on casks by 10%.

That way supermarkets prime loss leaders, cheap canned larger and cider and the vile smooth flow would have the pressure put on to up prices, tasteless fizzy kegs from the big brewers would be unaffected and the thriving cask micro brewery market would be given a big boost.

Hear, hear Padge.The beer accelerator tax made no sense at all, a method to close pubs and lose jobs was all it did, and widen the gap between between pub prices and cans of ###### fizzy lager.

Meanwhile, the top 9 investment bankers shared a bonus of £40 million. The top earners in society are really having it tough in the current economic climate.

The beer thing is the most blatant vote grabber in the history of politics. Absolutely no logic to it!!!

Greg Mullholland has been leading a campaign to scrap the beer duty escalator.

With the best, thats a good bit of PR, though I would say the Bedford team, theres, like, you know, 13 blokes who can get together at the weekend to have a game together, which doesnt point to expansion of the game. Point, yeah go on!

I'm really struggling to get my head round the plan for the government to start loaning people money for deposits to buy houses.

Isn't part of the reason for our current woes that banks lent money to people who couldn't really afford to pay it back, to buy houses they couldn't really afford to buy, that fuelled further house price inflation, that encouraged more people to borrow even more money they couldn't afford until it all eventually went bang and the government had to use taxpayers money to bail out the banks leaving a massive hole in the public finances that is getting bigger by the day despite all the never ending austerity we’re being subjected to?

So the solution to that, according to the Chancellor, is to cut out the middle man and give taxpayers money direct to people who can’t really afford to buy a house to encourage them to take on a load of additional private debt they may never be able to repay, thus further fuelling house price inflation while potentially restarting the whole vicious debt circle again before we’ve fixed the last one.

It just seems absolutely ludicrous to me.

Wouldn’t it have been simpler and more effective to release the money being used for this wheeze to local councils to build lots of social housing at affordable rents, thus stimulating the construction industry and creating jobs, providing homes for people who need them, preventing encouraging people taking on mortgage debts they can’t repay and avoiding fuelling even more extortionate rises in house prices. Increasing social housing rental stock would also help bring down the ridiculous levels of private rent, making even more homes affordable for even more people, and reducing the need for taxpayers to subsidise private landlords through the payment of housing benefit.